13 posts tagged “internet”
Today I was thinking about how everyone I was friends with on LJ seems to have abandoned ship (and I've done the same). I started going back through one of my two old accounts, and I came across a few things I thought I'd bring over here. Since I maintained one LJ account from late 2004 to early 2008 and another from 2001 to 2006, I'm going to limit myself to rereading a year's worth o' blog-age at a time. (And since I started this Vox account in August 2006, there may be a bit of overlap.) This is mostly for my own benefit, so don't expect any incredible examples of writing here. Or even anything interesting.
- First is this post from November 2007. Maybe I should first point out that I have always been amused at the alert you get when you try to remove a flash drive your computer is still accessing: "The device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later." It never fails to make me think of the song "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, and I imagine my flash drive is dancing up a storm and will not be interfered with. The post:
Just now, when I tried to "safely remove" my memory card from my computer, I got the "I don't think so" sound (which is a lot friendlier on Vista than on XP, I might add) and an information box that said... nothing. It had an exclamation point, and no message whatsoever. Apparently, Windows was just surprised I tried to remove my memory card.
- Next: I posted this video in September of 2007 and noted that I recognized about half the references--I couldn't decide if this meant I spent too much time on the Internet or not enough. Now, almost 2 years later, the answer seems clear, as I recognize almost every single reference.
- Then, from July 2007, this image, which still makes me laugh:
- Also from July 2007, my initial profanity-ridden post about disappointment over a final grade that turned out to be incorrect (I believe I whined about this incident on Vox as well) yielded this nugget:
And apparently I've moved out of the "massive disappointment" stage about [my grade] and into the "uncontrollable rage." It's sort of like knowing a cake is done; if you put a toothpick into the cake, and it comes out clean, the cake is done. If you put a toothpick into my paragraph and it comes out covered in the word "fuck," I'm not done being upset yet.
- From May 2007, another picture that makes me laugh endlessly:
- From April 2007, I found a post with the title "blame english 305..." and all it says in the post is "BALLSACK!" I have no idea what that meant then, but it made me laugh a lot right now.
- From March 2007, when I had apparently been playing a LOT of Legend of Zelda:
While walking towards my gate here in good ol' Dallas/Ft. Worth, I passed this guy who randomly decided it would be wise to stretch in public by putting his things down and pushing against the nearest wall. After fighting the nearly irresistible urge to remove my iPod's earbuds just long enough to say, "Sorry, that wall doesn't move; I already tried it," then walk off leaving him feeling as stupid as he looked, I thought: What if he actually moves the wall, and then the Zelda you-found-a-secret music played?
Bee da doo daa doo doo doo doo!
...They shouldn't let me have three hour layovers anymore.
- Also from March, this poem I composed upon realizing I'd lost a sheet of staff paper where I'd written my first (and only) 12-tone row. (Note that when moving this past April, I found this piece of paper and threw it away. Ha!):
I then went on to declare that if I ever got a dog I'd name him Row-ver Schoenberg.
- And last but not least, there was this post from February 2007:
Hey, everybody! Something new and different is about to hit the United States: a $1 coin!!!
...Oh wait. We've already had a $1 coin?
Well, we've never had a gold one!!!
...What? We already had that too?
(Does anyone even remember that coin? Because I sure don't.)
I'm not ashamed to be enamored of* Twitter. My love has gone to a new level, though; I've started a second account. I have two reasons: first, I want a public account, but I'd still like to hang on to a more personal account where I follow friends. Second, I have always wanted to do a haiku-only Twitter account! It's not an original idea by any means, but I think it'll be fun for me. And that's all that's important, right? Right.
So anyway, if you're one of the millions of Tweeple out there, feel free to follow my all-haiku account. (Who knows, maybe my burst of 140-character, syllabically-strict creativity will inspire certain Twitter-phobes to try it out? :D) If you're not already following my other account, there's a linkie.
*I AM ashamed to not understand why it's "enamored of" and not "enamored with," which is what sounds right to me. Can anyone explain this? It's like my troubles with how to properly use "comprise" all over again.
Ken is officially blocked because while I feel I should make every effort to be fair and allow people with views different from my own to speak their mind, this particular commenter is a textbook definition of a troll and as I noted on a previous post, trolling will not be tolerated. It's not a disclaimer I feel I should have to add like a signature to every post I make.
Furthermore, I realized it's my bloggie and I'll block if I want to. (You would block too if it happened to you.)
I deleted his comments on my most recent post (and yours in response, Nick--they didn't make sense without his comment there to reference), but left all the others, so if you ever feel a need to revisit the madness, you're able to.
This post is public--I'm not completely sure if blocking someone prevents them from commenting or from seeing your posts entirely. But if you can see this, Ken, please don't try to find a way around the blocking. I'll happily report you to Vox.
You may or may not be aware of the phenomenon known as Spaghetti Cat. I believe this all originated when The Soup went crazy over this brief clip of a stuffed cat in front of a plate of spaghetti. The image was used on some morning show (The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, so Wikipedia tells me) to censor dialogue, and now The Soup likes to throw it everywhere. Today I discovered this video/song, and I just can't get enough of it:
I subscribe to richfofo on YouTube primarily for videos of Winston, the exotic shorthair loved the whole Internet world over. Rich, who writes for VH1's blog in addition to maintaining his own, is a pretty all-around hilarious guy. Today I was delighted to find this nugget of goodness in my YouTube subscriptions; who could've guessed that Tyra Banks would prove such a useful debate coach?
I've always been aware of Craigslist, but never realized until now that it can actually be a bit addicting. I started out a few days ago looking for a nice but affordable small computer desk for Brian and all his computer needs, but find myself now going through everything in the Birmingham for sale category, just to see what people are selling. (Strange thing: Montgomery's Craigslist has a crapload of cars, whereas Birmingham's seems to be more furniture-oriented, from what I can tell so far. Football tickets abound in both locations.)
Some people make nice little tasteful headings for whatever they're selling. Some people go out of their way to convince you that OMGZ THIS IS THE BEST BUY EVAAAAR. And some people just don't seem to think about what they're saying, such as the posting for a blanket: "Life is good brand new blanket ~ Won't last a day ~ $50."
I'm confused. Am I paying $50 for a blanket that will automatically self-destruct after 24 hours? Is it 24 hours from the day of the posting, or from the moment of purchase? These are questions I feel I should ask the poster, but alas, I don't want to be perceived as harassing. I'm not harassing. Just curious.
I also wanted to harass ask questions to the guy who posted a door for sale. I can't tell you how much I wanted to e-mail him and ask where it leads, and to assure him that the answer to that question would help me make a decision as to how interested I am in said door. (I suspect he would be happy to tell me just where I could go, through the door or otherwise.)
Through the glory that is StumbleUpon (again I say that if you love wasting passing time on the Internet and you haven't tried it, you must), I discovered a very cool place full of Mark Twain quotes organized by subject. As a loser and future Scary Cat Lady, I of course wanted to see what a genius like Twain would have to say regarding felines. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Mark Twain was so ahead of his time that he actually knew of the existence of lolcats some 120 years before they would sweep the Internet. Don't believe me? I believe I have proof:
"You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does -- but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use." -A Tramp Abroad
So not only was he aware of lolcats well over a century ago, but perhaps he offers some insight into how the language of today's lolcats evolved--can it be that the lolcats of today are descendents of the angrier, less grammatically conscious cats of the 19th century? Would that not suggest that today's lolcats are in fact argumentative and violent themselves? It's a tempting hypothesis, but evidence to the contrary abounds:
A big bravo to Norton AntiVirus for going ahead and charging me for automatic service renewal (which I had cleared it to do), but then not bothering to actually renew. It all worked out fine, I just had to manually go in and make it synchronize or some business like that, but they had a whole help article dedicated to this problem--so I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's pretty common. Hey, maybe stupid crap like that is why there's a class action lawsuit against you right now Symantec.
Also, this crap bogs my laptop way the hell down. One of many reasons I'm loving my new Mac, which I neglected to ever make a post about. Soon! ...Maybe.
In other ridiculous news, have you ever seen Simple English Wikipedia? I see now that it's intended more for children or people learning English, but uh... how many high school students would you estimate are all over that bad boy instead of actually researching something? Now not only is doing legitimate research unnecessary... you don't even have to read a long, possibly inaccurate article. Read a short, possibly inaccurate one!
I'm probably going too far, I can see it's positive uses. But still. (In other news, I looked up "Simple English Wikipedia" on Simple English Wikipedia and the universe imploded. I'm reminded of Demetri Martin: I looked up the word "dictionary" in the dictionary. It said: "You're an asshole.")
Like my dear neighbor Steve Betz, I had a recent Voxiversary--September 1st marked two years. I've met a lot of cool people through Vox, and hope to keep hearing (reading?) from you guys through the next year! (Also, I hope a few of my neighbors who are MIA will pop back up again someday.)
Anyway, I've just spent the past several hours skimming through two years of posts (...because I'm just that self-absorbed?), and it's 2:45 in the morning, so I'm a little too sleepy to put together a coherent post at the moment. I've got some thoughts that promise to turn into blogging in the next few days though--and I'm sure you're all just on the edge of your seats for that.
Anyway, here's to beloved old neighbors, fabulous recently acquired ones, and neighbors to come!
I started out writing this whole lovely entry focused on one topic, and then I just decided I'm in no mood for serious bloggage. NO MOOD!
Why don't the "end" and "home" keys on Macs take you to the end or beginning of a line?! It's ridiculous! What is even the function, save to get you to the top or bottom of a page?! THAT'S WHAT I HAVE "PAGE UP" AND "PAGE DOWN" FOR, APPLE. (And unlike the whole supposed lack of a right click problem that upsets many, which can be resolved in System Preferences, there's nothing you can do about this. Although I have just discovered that you can change the function of the Control, Option, and Command keys--so if you're freaked out by all your Control button shortcuts being outsourced to the Command key, fret no more!)
That should not have been a paragraph's worth of bitching. And yet... there it is.
I keep having dreams about dreaming, and after rifling through the Internet's sources on dream meanings, I can tolerate New Age images and information no more. (If I see one more crescent moon or ancient symbol or unicorn, I may barf.) Honestly, I pretty strongly doubt dreams have "meanings," aside from the fact that you are consciously or subconsciously a little preoccupied with something. So tell me, neighborhood: What do you think my little metadreams are signaling? ...Probably just that I reflect upon my dreams too much.
Pardon the briefest of emo moments, but I'm feeling supremely pathetic this evening. My day so far has been: Wake up late for work. Coordinate Periodicals from 9:45 till 3:15. Complete work on the Very Sweet Package and Letter for Brian, which I mailed, and paid over $13 to mail by 4:00. Watch The Office on DVD until 6-something; waste time on Internet until now. The rest of my evening looks like: obtain KFC. Watch more Office. StumbleUpon if I run out of episodes. Oh yeah, livin' the dream baybee!
In other news, I completely forgot to make my post of glory a few weeks ago: I RECEIVED A MAC FOR GRADUATION. (And some sweet music software you probably don't care about.) You probably figured this out after the inordinately long paragraph about my silly keyboard. (My only complaints all have to do with the keyboard. MY CAPS LOCK KEY FAILS AT LIFE. And I yell a lot.) But still. The keyboard is sleek and flat and adorable, so I won't complain.
And now, to pursue greasy chicken and Jim Halpert. WHICH DO I LOVE MORE? It's so hard to say.
